A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

I’ve been talking, a lot in the last few weeks about the importance of values.

And more importantly, why/how they need to be embedded in your company’s culture to protect it as you grow.

Not just my thoughts, but links to business leaders and entrepreneurs who say the same thing.

The problem, of course, is that talk is fast and easy, while execution takes time and effort.

And that’s the reason  the result often looks like this.

Image credit: HikingArtist and Thomson Reuters via CB Insights

It’s amazing to me, but looking back on more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

For decades, ‘culture’ didn’t get much respect. Many managers considered it ephemeral; smoke and mirrors served up by consultants focused more on their bottom line than their client’s. Today, the critical importance of company culture is a generally accepted management subject. However, creating a great culture isn’t enough; it needs a solid infrastructure to sustain it and keep it flexible as the company grows. That said, the most important action any boss takes is found in the final sentence of this post. Read other Golden Oldies here.

When you build an edifice that you want to withstand the stresses of everyday living as well as crisis and catastrophe it’s important to include structural supports in the design.

The same is true for corporate culture and I call them “infrastructure building blocks” or IBBs.

There are three categories of IBBs—philosophy, attitude/style, and policy. There are many things that can be included, but here is a list of the most basic ones, some are fairly self-explanatory, others include commentary and links where possible.

The philosophy category includes

• Fairness: pay parity, merit promotions, egalitarian policies,
• Open communications: not a technology function, but a part of MAP.
• Business 101: basic information to reduce/eliminate naiveté, fuzzy or rose-colored views of the company’s business.
• No surprises
• Pragmatism

The attitude/style category includes:

• Manager vigilance: a constant awareness of what is going on and a willingness to deal with the reality of it immediately.
• Management-by-walking-around

The policy category is the concrete expression of the Philosophy and Attitude/Style IBBs. Just as the Preamble to the Constitution delineates the doctrines underlying it, each Policy IBB supports one or more of the IBBs described above.

Policy IBBs should be reasonably broad—macro rather than micro—since they support a flexible process, not ossified bureaucracy. They are your most potent infrastructure—the most tangible and, therefore, the hardest to corrupt or ignore, but also the most dangerous, because they can turn into bureaucracy in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful.

• Business Mission Statement (BMS)
• Cultural Mission Statement (CMS)
• Dual Mission Statement (DMS)
• Open-door
• Management by Box: actually a way to set your people free
• Dual Ladder Career Path: a series of hands-on positions that equate straight across the board with management positions.
• Hiring process: transparent and painless and easy to use for both candidates and hiring managers.
• Stock bonus plan (or similar)
• Sales incentives
• Reviews: Done correctly, they encourage personal growth, make negative behavior much harder to conceal and can even act as a screening tool during interviews.
• Surveys: useful for discovering problems, attitudes, product directions, company standing, etc. as perceived by employees and selected outsiders.

One caveat when implementing these and other approaches: lead by example; both managers and workers will do as you do, not as you say.

Image credit: flickr

A post in Forbes / Entrepreneurs by Jane Chen talks about the importance of knowing your ‘why’.

In my personal experience, this “why” is so important because it helps you rally people behind your mission. It gives you purpose and meaning. It helps you make the right decisions. And when things get hard, as they inevitably will as an entrepreneur, the “why” keeps you going – especially in those moments when you want to give up.

‘Why’ isn’t only for entrepreneurs; it’s always been a high priority item to me personally and should be embedded in every company’s culture.

But finding the ‘why’ isn’t exactly a popular pastime; in fact, for many it’s positively uncomfortable.

Of course, many of the things that are good for us are uncomfortable.

‘Why’ not only provides purpose and meaning, it also spurs innovation, solutions and closure.

So, the next time you are faced with a need for motivation/inspiration or  a problem/challenge/angst/confusion find your way past by first identifying the ‘why’.

You may need to go no farther.

Flickr image credit: steve p2008

“That culture is like the air we breathe or the water that fish swim in. It has the potential, for better or worse, to affect everybody in the same way.” –Dr. Linda H. Pololi, a senior scientist at Brandeis University

Dr. Pololi was talking about the culture in academic medicine negatively affecting men as well as women, although the women’s situation has a higher profile.

While the information in the article is interesting, as well as unexpected in part, it’s her comment at the end on which I want to focus.

As a manager you set the culture of your own group; it may closely resemble your company’s culture or may be wildly divergent.

The divergence is not always a bad thing—many managers have created great cultures in the midst of toxic ones.

By the same token, toxic mini cultures have been propagated within good company cultures by managers who believe that approach is the best way to manage.

Companies are much like gardens and the cultures within its main culture are what grow therein.

If you equate good culture to flowers and bad culture to weeds the problem becomes obvious.

Flowers are fragile and require more thought, attention and cultivation for them to spread.

However, with no effort on the part of the gardener, weeds spread quickly and if ignored will take over the garden.

There is an anonymous poem that I do my best to emulate throughout my life,

Your mind is a garden,
Your thoughts are the seeds,
You can grow flowers or
You can grow weeds.

With a bit of tweaking you can use it for your company,

Your company is a garden,
Your cultures are seeds,
You can grow flowers or
You can grow weeds.

It’s always a choice, but this choice will affect your employees, customers, vendors and investors.

Be sure to choose consciously, wisely and well.

Flickr image credit: William Murphy

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a potential client to get a feel for his MAP, i.e., management style, cultural vision and underlying beliefs, etc., while “Tony” got to know mine.

Afterwards I told him I didn’t believe we could form a productive relationship, wished him luck with his startup and we went our separate ways.

Yesterday I received an email from him regarding a senior level executive he was anxious to hire.

Tony said that the interviews seemed to go well, but when he made the offer it was turned down.

When he asked why the candidate responded in writing, below is the relevant paragraph.

The company culture can be moderately formal to moderately informal.  I care most about professionalism and mutual respect. I do not tolerate a highly politically charged environment where I must spend a lot of time calculating what the impact of a recommendation or observation will have on alliances, potential career tracks and other selfish-focused issues for the people around me.  I must be in a place where we are solidly aligned towards a clear set of goals, and those goals are not about personal advancement per-se, they are about people exceeding their own goals in pursuit of the company’s goals (which may shift with market conditions).  I need to be in situations where there are bright, optimistic people, who are open to new ideas.  There needs to be an environment and culture of accountability, and at the same time, one of try-fast, fail-fast, try again.  I need to surround myself with people who are good at not “this is not possible” but rather “this is what needs to happen for this to be possible.”

Tony said he didn’t see anything in the email to account for the turndown and asked if I had any suggestions on what he could do to land the guy.

I’ve only been speechless a few times in my life and this was definitely one of them.

Option Sanity™ reflects culture.

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.

Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

There is much talk about the need for “cultural fit” when hiring and rightly so, since being in the wrong culture is equivalent to a fish out of water.

But does fitting require total acceptance? Does it mean agreeing 100% with every value and the way each is implemented?

It’s not nitpicking; bad hires are only one outcome of a bad fit between candidates and corporate culture; bad cultural fits are also the culprit in most screwed up M&A.

Actually, there are many similarities between hiring one person and acquiring/merging two companies—no matter how complementary the skills, technology and experience, cultural incompatibility typically leads to disaster.

While culture may not seem obvious when acquiring or hiring, due diligence and good interviewing is eminently capable of identifying and exploring it.

The problem is that managers often ignore cultural differences, because they believe they that their culture is ‘right’ and those joining will change—much like the people who marry “in spite of [x],” believing that s/he will change because s/he loves me.

Consider Amazon and Zappos vs. Microsoft and Skype and then think about the candidates you “hired anyway.”

The problem is often not a matter of right or wrong, but of different—the things that float your boat don’t float mine or, worse, sink it.

And 98% of the time you should have seen it coming.

Fickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Go culture if you want to change.

Go culture if you want to innovate.

Go culture if you want to solve problems.

Go culture if you want better hires.

Go culture if you want to improve retention.

Go culture if you want to win.

I’ve spent decades saying go culture.

Culture is the font, the basis, the cause and the reason. It is the tao.

Need a bigger ‘brand’ to convince someone?

Click over to HBR and read Culture Trumps Strategy, Every Time by Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How. (Or send them one of the dozens of links from my culture posts over the years.)

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

In my varied reading I keep seeing articles and blogs talking about the importance of assessing cultural fit, understanding management styles and approaches, etc., and they go on to recommend asking direct questions to obtain the information.

However, no matter which side of the desk you are on, direct questions will rarely achieve your goal.

Here’s why.

Direct questions contain the correct answer. In legal terms it’s referred to as “leading the witness.”

The following are examples from real interviews.

• “We at XYZ believe that teamwork is a major factor in our success and are looking to hire more; are you a team player, Ms. Candidate?” The candidate responded that she believed that being a good team player was of paramount importance for a company’s success.
• “I’m looking for an opportunity that will challenge me and a manager who will coach me so I can move to the next level; will I find that in the job you have open?” The manager responded that there were many opportunities for promotion and that he relished helping his people grow.

Both interviews continued along these lines, each person assuring the other that they fit the profile indicated by the questions.

In both cases the interviews resulted in offers and hires.

Neither one lasted six months.

What happened?

Did the candidate or manager intentionally lie or did they unconsciously say what the other person wanted to hear?

In most of the cases I’ve seen it’s the latter.

Candidates are encouraged to do what it takes to “get the offer,” while managers want to fill the position as quickly as possible and move forward.

People are smart and both go into the interview wanting it to work. The result is that they give the “right” answer, with little thought to the long term outcome.

The take away for you is to make this axiom part of your MAP, so it will guide your responses automatically, whether you are a manager hiring or a candidate interviewing:

Don’t lead the witness and don’t follow where the witness leads.

For guidance on asking non-leading questions click the appropriate link, RampUp’s CheatSheet for InterviewERS or RampUp’s CheatSheet for InterviewEEs™

Image credit: Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

See all mY generation posts here.

A few days ago a CEO mentioned that he tries to run his company based on the Golden Rule. He was surprised when I responded that that wasn’t always a good idea and wanted to know why I thought that.

Since Carl Sagan had helped shape my attitude in his The Rules of the Game, I sent him the PDF to read.

The rules were garnered through living and they’re the best enticement I can think of to get you to read the essay. (All eight pages, click the link!).

TABLE OF PROPOSED RULES TO LIVE BY

• The Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• The Silver Rule Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
• The Brazen Rule Do unto others as they do unto you.
• The Iron Rule Do unto others as you like, before they do it unto you.
• The Tit-for-Tat Rule Cooperate with others first, then do unto them as they do unto you.

My CEO was delighted, because the rule evaluation results—Tit-for-Tat was the big winner—made so much sense.

I’m helping him put together a presentation explaining it—along with copies of the essay for everyone in the company—so the concepts can be woven into the company culture.

He thinks that his people, most are technically trained, will jump on it, since, in addition to it being from Sagan, prisoner’s dilemma (game theory) was applied by another scientist in evaluating the rules.

He says that that will prevent his techies from, “holding their collective noses and chanting fuzzy, fuzzy.”

Amazing what’s out there when you look for it.

Thank you (again) Carl Sagan.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: aikijuanma on flickr